The Relationship between Empowering Leadership, Work Characteristics, and Work Engagement among Academics: A SEM Mediation Analysis

Leaders in academia must navigate a situation in which academic autonomy is a fundamental value and therefore, has been argued, should be protected and encouraged by university management (Boyd et al., 2011), while academic activities are becoming increasingly diverse (Musselin, 2007). In the past, the core activities of research and teaching were emphasized more strongly, while academics nowadays engage more in diverse activities, such as proposal writing, maneuvering e-learning programs, and various bureaucratic obligations. Due to this diversification, academics may increasingly perceive many of their work tasks as unreasonable, which risks lowering both their job autonomy (Apostel et al., 2018) and motivation (Schmitt et al., 2015). Lower motivation among academics is, in turn, associated with lower academic productivity (Christensen et al., 2018). A potential remedy for alleviating these risks is effective academic leadership, characterized by the facilitation of participation in vital decisions, the encouragement of open dialogue, the generation of a collegial sense of community, and the provision of recognition (Bryman, 2007). Moreover, academics are professionals, which means they are likely to thrive better under subtler types of leadership behavior, comprised of protection and support, rather than direction and control (Mintzberg, 1998). In these regards, empowering leadership, defined as leader behaviors that share power with employees and encourage their use of power (Amundsen & Martinsen, 2014; Conger & Kanungo, 1988; Vecchio et al., 2010) shows promise. Empirical research has shown that empowering leadership is positively associated with valued outcomes, such as job satisfaction (Dallner et al., 2000), affective commitment (Albrecht & Andreetta, 2011), psychological empowerment (Amundsen & Martinsen, 2014), creativity (Zhang & Bartol, 2010), knowledge sharing, team efficacy, and performance (Srivastava et al., 2006). Empowering leadership has also been found to be positively related to motivation in the form of work engagement (Tuckey et al., 2012). Relatively little empirical attention has been paid to how and why empowering leadership is associated with motivation (Gilbert & Kelloway, 2014), but researchers have suggested that empowering leadership is related to work engagement because it shapes work characteristics (Tuckey et al., 2012). Based on empowerment and empowering leadership theories (Amundsen & Martinsen, 2014; Bass & Riggio, 2006; Conger & Kanungo, 1988; Dallner et al., 2000; Srivastava et al., 2006; Thomas & Velthouse, 1990; Vecchio et al., 2010), we propose that empowering leadership modifies the perception of work characteristics that are important to academics (i.e., unreasonable tasks, job autonomy, social community at work, and recognition). We further propose that in response to empowering leadership creating favorable working conditions, academics reciprocate with motivation, as outlined by social exchange theory (Settoon et al., 1996; ORIGINAL ARTICLE